Recital with Marianne Crebassa

Marianne Crebassa delights audiences and press alike with her magnificent, dark timbre. The charismatic mezzo-soprano is acclaimed worldwide on the great opera stages, where – if the role requires it – she sometimes accompanies herself on the piano. Marianne Crebassa studied not only singing but also piano (and musicology) in her home town of Montpellier before she was engaged at the opera studio of the Opéra national de Paris, where she made her debut as Orpheus in Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice and appeared in productions of Berg’s Lulu, Verdi’s Rigoletto and Mozart’s La finta giardiniera. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in August 2012 alongside Plácido Domingo in Handel’s Tamerlano. She later returned there for the title role in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s opera Charlotte Salomon, among other roles, and in 2017 attracted worldwide attention in Salzburg as Sesto (in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito). As a concert singer, Marianne Crebassa, who was named Singer of the Year by the French music award Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2017, works with the most prestigious orchestras – including the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom she made her debut in the Waldbühne concert in 2019. Her album Secrets, where she is accompanied by Fazıl Say, won a Gramophone Award.

What does it take to be a good lieder accompanist? In the words of Joseph Middleton, first of all a “bulletproof piano technique”. And then: “to be a good listener”. And “last but not least, you have to love voices, be really obsessed with how singers work, what their vocal technique and vocal colour is all about”. Joseph Middleton should know. He has been hailed as “the rightful heir to the legendary lieder accompanist Gerald Moore” (Opera Magazine), one of “the brightest stars in the world of the art song” (BBC Music Magazine). Specialising in lieder accompaniment and chamber music, the pianist is director of the Leeds Song Festival, musician in residence at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and professor at London’s Royal Academy of Music, where he was once taught by Malcolm Martineau. Towards the end of his studies, he won the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, the Wigmore Song Competition, the Kathleen Ferrier and the Geoffrey Parsons Awards. A year later he entered a competition where he was discovered by the great baritone Sir Thomas Allen, who invited him to join him on international concert tours and play in renowned venues such as the Wigmore Hall. “From then on, my great passion for music and especially for playing the piano developed into the most wonderful profession,” says the world-renowned lieder accompanist.